ArtistInfo

Michael A. Arnzen

voc, key,
Spoken Word

Author Michael Arnzen has won four Bram Stoker Awards for his horror writing. He scored and performed most of the instruments on his first audiobook, called "Audiovile" -- an eclectic, hour-long spoken word performance of 16 short stories and poems set to dark and quirky music. (A companion to the re-released and expanded edition of his book, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories). Jack Haringa, in his review of Audiovile for Dead Reckonings journal, called Arnzen's work "...a performance-art piece of manic Beatnik horror. For the majority of the CD's sixteen tracks, Arnzen assumes a frenzied persona that blends elements of Alan Ginsberg, Henry Rollins, and Patrick Bateman to deliver simultaneously horrifying and humorous short stories. His performances are supported by strange and atmospheric music that ranges across styles, evoking early punk for one track only to move into '80s Euro-horror soundtrack for the next and so on." Arnzen continues to experiment with performance, sound, and vision, to explore the modalities of bizarro, humor and horror fiction. A limited edition ep, "Live and Vile," captures a live reading and includes remixes and demo versions of Audiovile. Michael Arnzen keeps a weblog at http://www.gorelets.com/blog

Instruments

• Vocals
• Keyboards